The Grand Cham. Harold Lamb

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СКАЧАТЬ captive who still stood quietly at his side, and with the interest of a born leader of men he scrutinized the square high shoulders, the long chin and the wide, delicate mouth upturned in a half-smile.

      The man’s face was burned by the sun to the hue of leather; his ragged tunic fell away from a heavily thewed pair of arms. His body had the lines of youth, but his eyes and mouth were hard with fatigue.

      “You know my speech,” observed the deep voice of the Thunderbolt. “And your eyes tell me that you are not mad. What is your name and rank?”

      “Michael Bearn,” responded the Christian.

      “Mishael Bi-orn. Your rank?”

      “None, my lord.” The man’s smile broadened slowly.

      “In what army did you serve?”

      “None, my lord.”

      The patrician sheik, whose fathers had been warriors, spat upon the ground and assured his master the sultan that this dog and the other Franks had been taken when a Christian galley was shipwrecked on the Anatolian shore a year ago. The Turks who took them had said that this dog was khan of the galley, that he was a caphar magician who steered his craft by a bedeviled needle that pointed always to the north.

      “What is your country?” demanded Bayezid.

      “I have no country. The sea is my home.”

      Michael Bearn had been born on the cliffs of Brittany. His mother, an Irish gentlewoman, had landed from his father’s ship for the birth of the boy. When his father, a taciturn Breton, had died, Michael had left his mother in a tower on the Brittany coast and had taken to the sea.

      There had been talk of a crusade against the Turk who was master of the Holy Land. Michael’s mother had pleaded with the boy to wait and join one of the bands of warrior-pilgrims to Rome. But Michael had no yearning for the cassocked priests. The sea called him and his father’s blood urged him to strange coasts.

      It was the way of women, he had told the Irish mother, in his young intolerance of belief, to seek comfort of priests and to covet the insignia of the cross. His mother had hid her tears and Michael did not know how he had hurt her.

      Following the bent of that time, a few years had brought him to the Levant and the glamor of trade with the Orient. He had been master mariner of the galley wrecked on the Anatolian coast while it was being pursued by Turkish pirates.

      “And so,” mused Bayezid, “a slave without rank, without race and an unbeliever dares to disobey a command of mine? So be it. You have strength in your arms and pride. It pleases me to put both to the test.”

      It was part of the secret of the Thunderbolt’s achievement that he enforced cruel discipline among his followers. Michael Bearn’s eye lighted and he lifted his head.

      “Set a scimitar in my hand,” he said quickly. “My lord, choose one of your skilled swordsmen and let him wear his mail. With a scimitar—his weapon, not mine—I will stand against him in my shirt.”

      The stubborn pride of the Breton that had not let him prostrate himself under the foot of a Turk flared at the chance to strike a blow with a weapon. He had endured captivity doggedly, seeking for a chance to escape to the hills to the east where were tribesmen who did not owe allegiance to the sultan.

      But he had not been willing to demean himself, to gain time for a further chance at liberty with his five comrades. Like all seamen of the age, he was experienced in the use of sword and mace.

      A swift death was better than months of running beside the horse or litter of a Turkish master.

      “Shall a dog be given a sword?” growled the aged sheik, quenching Michael’s new hope. This time Bayezid glanced at his follower approvingly.

      “Bring this man,” he ordered, “with the five caphars, his comrades, before my tent. Bring a sword, and”—he nodded thoughtfully—“the iron sleeve.”

      AT MENTION of this instrument of torture which broke the bones of a man’s arm as easily as glass, the slaves who understood Bayezid’s words shivered and stared at Michael. They followed, however, after the white cap of the swaggering Janissary, to see the torment inflicted.

      The dark face of the Thunderbolt softened in pleasant expectancy as he knelt on a priceless carpet under the open portico of his tent and scanned the six Christians. He was accustomed to play with his victims. Disdaining further to address the captives openly he whispered to the Sheik of Rum, who stood in the half-circle of courtiers behind the sultan.

      “Know, O ill-omened ones,” translated the old Moslem in bastard Greek, “that your leader has offended against the Majesty, the Splendor. Torture will be the lot of your khan unless——”

      With an eye to dramatic effect he paused, nodding to the master of the slaves who advanced from the group of watching Janissaries, a spear’s cast away. The warrior carried a misshapen thing of iron resting on a wooden table. The rusty metal was formed in the semblance of a lion with an enormous mouth, lying prone on the table. Twin bars projected on either side from the ribs of the beast.

      “—unless,” resumed the sheik, “one of you five caphars will offer to fight in defense of the body of your friend.”

      Michael Bearn looked up quickly, intending to warn his mates not to accept the proffer of the Moslems. But they did not meet his eye. They were Portuguese and Italians, wasted by sickness and misery.

      “It is not fitting, verily,” the spokesman went on, interpreting the low words of Bayezid, “that a good weapon should be given to the hand of one who is accursed. Yet a lion may slay a dog, and the sight of an infidel’s blood is a blessing to a true believer. So, one of you may take up the quarrel of your comrade and fight with swords against one of the champions of the Janissaries. Whether your champion conquers or not, the man named Bearn will be spared the torture.”

      Whereupon the sheik drew his own scimitar and held out its hilt.

      Michael Bearn would have taken it, but the wily Moslem shook his head.

      “Not you,” he explained in Arabic. “The Most Wise will presently make a test of your strength. Now he tries out the Christian hearts of your comrades.”

      As none of the others volunteered for the duel, the sultan made a further concession. The man who offered to fight would be set free—if he lived—with Bearn.

      But the five men would not hazard their lives on a chance of liberty. They cast sidelong glances at the glittering scimitar and at a stalwart warrior who stood forth from the guards, his shield dressed ready for the conflict.

      It gave keen pleasure to Bayezid to see these men refuse the issue. He smiled to think that they clung to the ignoble life of slavery. His own men were trained to value their lives lightly in battle and to die for their faith.

      It pleased Bayezid, also, to deny Bearn the chance of the fight, for he knew that the young seaman would have welcomed it.

      “So be it,” he nodded. “The torture.”

      The expectant master of the slaves summoned the waiting warrior and set the table before Michael Bearn.

      “Hold forth your СКАЧАТЬ